Former French police officer François Vérove has been identified as a notorious serial killer who terrorized Paris in the 1990s, admitting to his crimes in a suicide note.
Per USA Today via French news outlets Le Point and Le Parisien, Vérove fatally overdosed at age 59 on Sept. 29, shortly after police called him in for questioning and requested a DNA sample. With postmortem DNA tests on the body, authorities confirmed that Vérove was in fact the serial killer who was known locally as Le Grêlé, which translates to “the pockmarked man.”
Vérove was summoned by police to provide a sample of his DNA on Sept. 24 and was reported missing by his wife three days later. His body was discovered in a rented apartment alongside a suicide note admitting to his crimes in Grau-du-Roi, along the Mediterranean coast. Vérove did not specify the murders he was involved in, but sources indicate he admitted to “previous impulses” in the letter, and said he had since “got himself together.”
The news ends a 35-year hunt for the notorious killer, who was believed to be connected to at least four murders and six rapes in Paris between 1986 to 1997. Among his victims was 11-year-old Cécile Bloch, who was reported missing in ’86 after she didn’t show up to school. The other murder victims Vérove is potentially connected to include a 38-year-old man and two women, aged 19 and 20.
“We won’t ever know all the crimes Le Grêlé committed,” Didier Saban, a lawyer who represents the families of the victims, told the BBC. As a result of the confession note, it is expected many cases will be reopened to see if Vérove could be connected to more murder or assault cases.
At the time of his crimes, Vérove was part of a police unit that investigated potential pedophilia cases.
“We had this conviction that he was either an officer or a gendarme, both from the violence he used against his victims and the tactics he adopted,” added Saban, who suggested Vérove might have presented his police credentials to lure his victims.
